Getting to Heaven

Getting to Heaven

Fulton J. Sheen was in Philadelphia to give a lecture.  He stopped to ask some young lads for directions to the Town Hall.  They gave them and asked what he was going to do there.  “I’m going to give a lecture on ‘How to Get To Heaven.’ want to come?” “Hell, no,” said one of the boys, “you don’t even know how to get to town hall!”

Much of the preaching I heard when I was a child was concerned with heaven and hell, what they were like, how to get into the one, and stay out of the other.  It didn’t occur to me to doubt that those ponderous pulpit pounders knew exactly what they were talking about.  Their descriptions made us almost drool to get to the pearly gates and streets of gold, and to hide under the bed to keep our souls out of the other place.

Like a certain freed slave in Alabama, a deacon, a constant attender of all services and a fervent prayer.  At the mid-week prayer service he always followed his long prayer with the passionate plea:  “Keep my body out of jail and my soul out of hell.  Amen” Well one day while in town he tied his horse in the wrong place and the sheriff threw him in jail.  When he was next able to attend prayer meeting, he ended his prayer with: “O Lord, you let my body get in jail; please don’t fool around with my soul!”

I had similar feelings once while sitting in a revival service at camp meeting.  The fiery preacher was describing the funeral of a less-than-holy brother.  Just before the altar call he finished the sermon with, “And that poor man half rose out of his casket, saying, ‘Water!  Water!  It’s hot down here!’  If he was trying to scare the “hell” out of us kids, he was succeeding.

Today the preaching about heaven is somewhat more speculative and hell is seldom mentioned any more, but most people, I believe, are highly in favor of the good place.  One preacher dealing with this subject noticed a parishioner asleep in his pew.  He said quietly, “Everyone who wants to go to heaven, stand up.” One hundred and ninety-nine people stood up.  He motioned them to be seated.  The two hundredth member still slept.  The preacher shouted, “EVERYONE WHO W ANTS TO GO TO HELL, STAND UP!”  This awoke the sleeper who jumped to his feet, looked around and said, “1 don’t know what we are voting for, Pastor, but it looks like you and I are the only ones for it!”  I guess a hundred and ninety-nine to two isn’t bad odds.

I’m glad I have lived as long as I have.  I always believed in the after-life, but it is thrilling to see some of the finest minds in the world coming to grips with what seemed like an insoluble problem and hacking out some chinks in the curtain that let glints of light shine through.

I don’t see how anyone who knows the Bible, and has thought much on the subject, and read the research could not believe in life after death.  An employer once asked a worker: “My boy, do you believe in life after death?”  And the employee answered: “Yes Sir! I most certainly do!”

“That’s good,” his boss said, “because your Grandfather came by to see you an hour after you left for his funeral yesterday.”

Ah, what is the music going to be like for you, when you meet your father, mother, grandparent and all those others who have preceded you?  I’d like to close by summarizing the life of one southern boy who will be full of joy on that morning.  There was distinguished man in Georgia whose wife died quite young.  He never married again.  To help raise his young son, the man hired a mammy named Mary to be housekeeper and Nanny to his son Jimmy.  She was a devout Christian and took her tasks seriously, imparting her beliefs and songs to Jimmy as the occasion arose.  Each morning she went to wake Jimmy up with the words: “Wake up, son, God’s mornin’ is come.”

Time went by and Jimmy went away to school.  Every time he came back for vacations he would be awakened each morning with the beloved words, “Wake up.  God’s mornin is come.” Jimmy, like his father, became a well known man.  One day while on a business trip the telegram came:  “Just to let you know.  Stop.  Mary has died.  Stop.”  He rushed home to attend her funeral.  After the funeral he went to his lawyer’s and made arrangements to be buried in that cemetery in a plot beside Mary’s.  And so he was when he died.  And he was the only white man to be buried there.  He had said to his lawyer, “When Jesus comes again I want to hear that voice say, ‘Wake up, son, God’s mornin’ is come.’”  Amen.